ARC Review: Famous for a Living by Melissa Ferguson

Famous for a Living by Melissa Ferguson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2 stars

I love a Hallmark movie romance plot as much as the next person but I require them to be at least a tiny bit original or, you know, accurate. This book was perfectly set up with Cat being a disgraced influencer who moved back to a small town (or into a national park her uncle was the...something of? Head ranger? Overlord?) and a hot mountain man guy who helped her survive her idiotic City girl impulses like improper footwear and driving a convertible Mercedes in the snow. Sounds great, right? Well you would be WRONG.

This book, in the year 2023, requires you to believe:
- mason jars were never popular and this influencer made them sell out across the country! I did not suffer through the hipster and Pioneer Woman eras where we made small batch pickles and poured carafes of water into mason jars for this crap.
- a national park needs a City girl influencer to make them popular and boost attendance so they aren't absorbed into Glacier National Park??? ???? In what world would a national park in Montana, you know, where the 10th most visited park is, not also be popular? ???? The least visited parks are in remote parts of Alaska a park in Montana you can easily drive right to would not have these problems. And not having enough visitors wouldn't lead to them being not a national park anymore ???? They are for preservation not making a profit?? And how on earth would more Instagram followers help any of this anyway. Absurd.
- that a side character with a full time job can easily sew 200 intricate custom cozies at a time for the new mason jar trend and not want to throw themselves and their sewing machine into the nearest river from burnout.

But those aren't even the worst parts. Nope. That would be that the entire book is actually a Very Special Episode about the dangers of social media because it will lead you to text while driving, cause a car crash, and go to jail like the male main character's (whose name is Zaiah...) ex girlfriend. So flip phone Zaiah now hates everything to do with social media and how will he and Cat the influencer who is addicted to her phone work this out??? Through the power of love and her leaving her phone at home during a date obviously. And eventually her changing nothing about herself, staying an influencer, and Zaiah getting over his phone trauma I guess.

Oh, and also there is an epilogue baby. Gross.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

View all my reviews